


Just Friends

by DegenerateBible



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-26 00:46:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DegenerateBible/pseuds/DegenerateBible
Summary: Series of vignettes based off prompt: "We're just friends," they say. Too bad no one buys it, not even them.





	Just Friends

“Nothing can be worse than you at the toga party,” Olivia hears a strange male voice say through the open door of Barba’s office. 

“Except the drag show where you downed enough jello shots for all of us,” Barba snorts, looking the most relaxed the detective has ever seen him. 

A man is leaning on the edge of Barba’s desk when Olivia walks in. He’s small, lithe, young. Calm brown eyes, a small smirk on his face. Barba is sitting in his desk chair holding a coffee cup, wearing a matching smile. They were talking from the looks of it, friendly bantering about a time before their jobs became their lives. 

“Am I interrupting?” Olivia asks, watching the two of them closely. There’s some emotion in the DA’s eyes as he looks the stranger over, some emotion she’s never seen from him. 

“Not at all,” Barba drawls, rising, the look vanishing just as quickly as it occurred. “This is Dr. George Huang, your new FBI consultant.” 

“Nice to meet you,” Olivia says and they shake hands, Olivia noting how soft his are, how gentle his smile. 

“Likewise,” he replies. “I look forward to meeting your squad.” He checks his watch, frowning slightly. “I’m afraid I have to go. But I look forward to seeing you on Monday.” 

She nods and watches him leave. 

“Something you needed?” Barba asks, walking over to the coffee pot. 

“How do you know him?” Olivia counters, watching the attorney pause ever so slightly before pouring more coffee into his mug. 

“We went to college together,” he says casually and turns to look at her again before taking a sip. 

“Oh.” 

“Oh?” He repeats, an amused challenge in his voice. “Pray tell.” 

“Nothing, nothing,” Olivia denies smiling. 

Barba stifles an eye roll but scoffs. “You’ve been in sex crimes too long. We’re just friends.” 

“Ok,” Olivia says raising her hands in mock surrender. She lets the subject drop and asks for a warrant. 

…

In Sonny’s opinion, _just friends_ don’t look at each other like that. And Barba has never been guilty of being remarkably nice to anyone. But he’s nice to the doc. 

Nice and perhaps even a bit protective. Protective in the way that he’s always stands close to Huang when he delivers profiles, in the way his eyes watch intently behind the one-way glass when the doc is interviewing a suspect, in the way that he argues with anyone who conflicts the doctor’s opinions. 

“Are you sure George?” Rafael is saying as he maneuvers them to the coffeepot in the squad room. 

The doctor is eating a green apple. He swallows, smirking wryly. “As sure as four years of med school will allow counselor.” 

Barba shakes his head, pours coffee into a paper cup, downing half before refilling it. “That’s what I was afraid of.” 

The entire squad has been up for 28 hours straight. The last thing they wanted to hear was the man they collared wasn’t the right guy. Barba certainly didn’t want to. The case is front page news and he’s been fielding questions from various city officials all day. 

“You and me both,” George says with a weary sigh. He takes the coffee cup out of the attorney’s hand. “We’ll get him though,” he says and walks away. Barba’s phone rings and with a dreading groan he does the same. 

“Did you see that?” Sonny stage whispers. Rollins looks up from her laptop at him irritably. 

“See what?” she demands, staving off a yawn. “The doc tell Barba we got nothing? I knew that already.” 

“No no,” he says, shaking his head impatiently. “The doc took Barba’s coffee.” 

This gets the blonde’s attention. No one, not even Liv, could ever separate the attorney from his beloved caffeine and get away with it. 

“Did he give it back?” she asks. 

“No, he still has it.” They both adjust their seats to see the doctor working furiously at the conference table, Barba’s coffee cup in his hand. “Barba didn’t say a thing.” 

“Freaky,” Rollins admits. 

…

 

“George?” 

The doctor is briefing Olivia and Rafael about profile when he hears his name. He turns, a curious slight smile touching his lips. 

“Trevor?” 

Trevor Langan waltzes over to the trio, nodding at each of them politely before turning his attention to the psychiatrist. “I thought you were back in San Francisco.” 

“I was,” the doctor says, “just transferred. I’m surprised Alex didn’t tell you.” 

“You two know each other?” Barba asks, fixing Langan with an unreadable but decidedly negative look. 

Langan and Huang look at each other for one conspiring second. 

“We’re old friends,” Huang says. Trevor coughs, rubbing the back of his neck with a smile. 

“I see,” Barba replies, his tone sharp as ever, “well did you need something?” 

George shoots him a confused look. Olivia refrains from chuckling. Langan looks affronted. 

“I actually came to talk to Liv,” he says pointedly, “It’s good news about Noah. Now a good time?” 

“Of course,” she says, quickly doing a sweep of the squad room, “if you two boys will excuse me.” 

“Good seeing you George,” Langan calls over his shoulder, “We’ll have to catch up sometime.”

Both men watch them walk into Liv’s office. 

“Well I’d better go,” Barba says and does without another word. George frowns in confusion but shrugs it off. 

…

Barba is sick. Some monstrous love child of a cold and the flu has infiltrated SVU. The DA is just another unfortunate casualty. 

“You really should sleep,” Barba hears. His head is resting on his desk as its been for the past half hour. He groans but doesn’t open his eyes. He can hear him move about the room, hear him close the office door and drop his medical bag on one of the chairs. 

“You look like hell.” 

Despite the killer headache, he still manages to level the doctor with an impressive glare. George doesn’t appear to be fazed by it. He sighs though, looking just a touch concerned. “Have you drank anything today that wasn’t coffee? Eaten anything? Sleep at all?” 

“A wise man once said don’t ask questions you already know the answer to,” Barba replies, rubbing his eyes. In all honesty, he doesn’t know if he can keep anything down. 

There’s silence that follows but the attorney is more than happy to have some quiet. He’s nearly dozing off again but then George’s cool fingers are rubbing his overly warm temples and he can feel his warmth from where he stands beside him and its more comforting than it probably should be. 

“You need to eat,” George murmurs softly, “and sleep and drink water.” 

Barba is half-asleep and only offers an acknowledging hum, content. 

He doesn’t exactly remember dozing off. But he wakes to the sound of a bag being dropped a few inches from his head. He looks up blearily to see George standing beside his desk with a smirk. 

“This bag contains Dayquil, Nyquil, cans of various flavors of soup, a thermometer, tissues, and that one musical you wouldn’t shut up about in 2009.” 

Barba blinks up at him, feeling a wave of unbelieving gratitude and tenderness and something _else_ , some other fluttering emotion he’s felt for years but never felt comfortable naming. But before he can say anything the doctor’s phone rings. 

“I have to go.” He’s halfway out the door when he says, “go home before I call your mother.” 

He doesn’t have to turn around to know Barba goes more pale than before. 

…

They’re friends, Barba thinks, just friends. 

But…

Just friends don’t talk every day. Just friends don’t spend nearly every weekend together. Just friends don’t show up randomly on Friday nights with a movie and popcorn because the last case was a particularly brutal one. But he did and George didn’t even bat an eye. 

So they’re on the doctor’s couch watching Kill Bill Volume 1 and laughing at how ridiculous it is but how amazing Lucy Liu’s acting skills are. 

“You know this is wildly inaccurate,” George points out but he’s smiling, “and maybe just a bit racist.” 

Barba chucks pieces of popcorn at his face. “Don’t analyze!” he demands. “No analyzing! Just relax. Deal?” 

“Okay, okay enough,” George relents with a chuckle, scooping the thrown projectiles off his lap and back into the bowl. 

“I forgot how long this movie is,” Barba says after a while, engrossed in the screen. He’s met with silence. “George?” 

But the doctor is asleep, leaned back into the couch cushions. Barba smiles fondly and clicks off the television. For a moment he’s conflicted as to whether to wake him or let him sleep, whether he should go or stay. What would friends do? 

But then George mumbles something in his sleep and lays on him, curling into him instinctually, effectively making up Barba’s mind for him. 

And certainly a “just friend” wouldn’t wrap his arms gently around the doctor, caress his hair, or murmur gentle words of comfort when George stirs as if from a nightmare. But Rafael does. 

And if George wakes up the next morning still wrapped in Rafael’s arms, smiles, and goes back to sleep, neither says a thing. 

…

“You seeing this?” Fin says. 

They’re arguing heatedly, sharp hand gestures and raised voices right there in the precinct parking lot. Olivia and Fin watch them, warm bags from another late night food run momentarily forgotten. 

“He could have killed you!” Rafael yells, looking at him in enraged disbelief.

“Damn I’ve never seen Barba that pissed off,” Olivia replies, her brow knitted in concern. “Especially at the doc.” 

“Yeah. Huang’s not backing down though,” Fin observes. 

“But he didn’t!” George says back just a decibel too low to be considered yelling. “That boy is alive. Everything is fine!” 

“Oh so because the boy isn’t dead that justifies you trying to commit suicide by psychopath?!” 

“I know what I’m doing!” George shoots back, a visible scowl on his face as he runs his hands irritably through his hair. 

They’re so close together. George is yelling now which is scary because he never yells. Rafael is shaking his head in disbelief. They yell over each other back and forth, both looking as though they might actually start physically fighting because Barba pushes him and then George shoves him back. But then Barba pushes George against a wall and they’re _kissing._

They’re kissing with such ferocity and passion, their hands pawing at every inch of each other, so electric and intimate that Fin and Olivia feel the need to look away. But they don’t. 

They watch as the kissing slows to something unbelievably tender, how gently Barba cups George’s face, how softly George’s hands rest on his hips. They break for air, staring into each other’s faces in bewilderment. 

“George,” Rafael says shakily, breathing heavy, his eyes ablaze. 

George looks dazed. He touches his fingers to his lips which are decidedly swelling. His eyes are a wide, shocked brown. They’re still so close, Rafael’s hands on his neck and shoulder, his own still holding his hips. 

“Rafael…” George replies, looking so confused and conflicted. He licks his lips and brushes back his bangs, his brain shooting out too many pieces of info for him to truly analyze. 

“I…I can’t deny I’ve been wanting to do that for a while,” Barba says, attempting casualty and failing miserably. He clears his throat, his cheeks rosy. “So what do you say doctor, do you want to be more than friends?” 

“I suppose we’ve always been a bit more than that,” George admits with a radiant smile. 

“I suppose so,” Rafael chuckles reluctantly dropping his hands. “Dinner?” 

“Okay.” 

And perhaps just friends don’t exit the parking lot arm and arm leaving two shell-shocked cops in their wake, but they’ve never really been just friends.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/request always appreciated


End file.
